Thinking Your Way Out
by Tony Stark's Hidden Side
Summary: When the three fully human members of the Avengers are kidnapped, everyone is (pretty) sure they'll be fine. It's two master assassins and a genius, after all. But these kidnappers aren't leaving any openings for Natasha and Clint to exploit... so Tony is going to have to make some. Unfortunately, that might mean compromising himself and trusting his teammates to get him out alive.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N - Well, my last "people get kidnapped" story has so far accumulated quite a following, so I figured I might as well bang out another one. Unlike "Signs of Life," though, this one isn't already finished, so I have** ** _no idea_** **where it's going. Have a nice day and some worried Nick Fury...**

Sometimes Fury wondered why, in a team full of "super-powered" beings, a good half of them were just skilled humans. The Fantastic Four, the X-Men, they didn't work like that. But there they were: on the one hand, a man who turned into a practically immortal monster, an alien straight out of Norse mythology, and a supersoldier made from an experimental serum.

On the other hand, world's best archer, most fearsome assassin, and best-known inventor. They fought with nothing but their raw skill, or in Tony's case, intelligence and some repurposed "scraps in a cave." It was ridiculous to ask them to live up to the standards set by their not-entirely-human counterparts, and yet they managed it. Day after day, fight after exhausting fight, they managed to survive circumstances that could have been the death of even a god.

So when he split the team in half for two separate missions, the director didn't really think about how to divide between regular people and impossible beings. He just assigned them as he saw fit: the assassins and the genius to protect the diplomatic summit, the supersoldier, Hulk, and demigod to forcibly break a Hydra base.

And when he heard one of his teams had been captured and were being held by potential terrorists, he honestly had to ask, "Which one?"

Because if there was one thing Nicholas J. Fury had learned over the years, it was that the all-too-human members of his team _were not weaker than their allies._ With one possible exception. The possible exception that made his blood run cold when he heard the full report, because there was only one person on that team who might not be able to defend themselves if they were left with nothing at hand to help them.

Without the Iron Man suit, not only was Tony Stark physically average (and since when had "physically average" meant anything more than "weak" in SHIELD terms), he also had the added handicap of having a _several inch deep hole in his chest_ , with all the pain and shortness of breath that implied even with the arc reactor in place.

When the chips were down and they were thrown into circumstances that would kill a lesser man, Tony Stark without his suit was not the person you really wanted on your side.

Actually, if Fury had asked the Avengers, they all would have answered that if they already got Natasha Romanoff and Clinton Barton, Tony Stark was _exactly_ the third person they would want on their side. But Fury didn't ask the Avengers.

Half of them couldn't answer at the moment, anyway.

It was times like these when Fury wondered why, in a team full of "super-powered" beings, a good half of them were just skilled humans.

* * *

Sometimes, Natasha reflected as she regained consciousness, she wondered why the hell she had agreed to become an Avenger.

After all, it wasn't as if a team like this needed her on the front lines. Well, New York had been an exception, but they had needed _anyone_ in New York. When it came down to it, Clint and Natasha could be just as useful working behind the scenes in their normal roles, pairing up to take down high-profile targets and acquire valuable information.

Of course, they would have ended up kidnapped that way sooner or later, too. It had happened more than once (more than once a week one _memorable_ Christmas vacation), and they had always managed to get out of it, with or without SHIELD's assistance.

She assessed her surroundings as best she could while blindfolded and tied to a chair. The number of people in the room was somewhere between five and seven depending on how still these people were capable of being. She would place money on five, but she wouldn't bet her _life_ on it, so she assumed seven. She was tied up with actual rope, which wouldn't make this as easy as "the zip tie incident" of 2009. Maybe there was hope for the criminal class after all.

On the other hand, maybe not, because they hadn't even noticed she was awake yet, and she had even tested the strength of the ropes. Obviously nobody was keeping an eye on her wrist muscles or they would have noticed the tension. She still had an element of surprise.

The questions were, in order of significance: _What weapons are present in this room? How many of my concealed knives did they notice? Where is my team - Clint?_ And finally, _who the hell are these jokers and what do they want?_

Unfortunately, she got the answer to the last question first, as someone roughly said, "She's awake." Whether it was the muscles in her wrists or some other tell that had tipped the man off, she didn't get a chance to find out. "Knock her out again," the man commanded, and something wet was forced over her mouth and nose. She tried the whole _pretend you inhaled it and play dead_ routine, but the rag just wasn't pulled away.

The fact that these "jokers" were smarter than the average (or, really, even the high class) kidnappers she and Clint had faced in the past did _not_ bode well for their escape plans, she mused, and felt her lungs strain for a breath of air. She refused them, waiting for the rag to depart.

One of the men hit her in the stomach, and her diaphragm involuntarily contracted, forcing her to breathe in. Immediately she felt unconsciousness tugging at her, and had time only to idly wonder whether Clint was faring any better than her.

It was times like these when she was glad that she still had her partner beside her even as they were part of a larger team.

* * *

Sometimes, when things got really tough, Clint was glad he had trained for hours in the middle of the night, when he could have been sleeping. It was times like these when he was glad he had never given up and refused to pick up the bow, when he was glad he had soldiered on.

Because there was no way he was getting out of this without every scrap of his skill. He was practically hogtied, a hood over his head and a gag stuffed in his mouth (which tasted terrible, thanks for asking). He could tell just by touch that he had no weapons on him, not even the tiny knife he kept in places you really did not want to know. That so far raised his estimation of whoever was holding them prisoner by several notches. If their security was as good at keeping them in as it had been at _getting_ them in, any escape would have to be absolutely perfectly executed. He needed to find Natasha as fast as possible.

First, though - getting out of the ropes without so much as a toothpick. That was going to take time, probably more time than he had before someone realized he was awake. There was at least one person nearby. He widened his senses, trying to catch a sound, an odd smell, anything like that. There was just the man's steady breathing.

This was _not_ going to be easy.

It was times like these when Clint was glad he never gave up.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes - and he was being completely honest for once - Tony Stark _really, really hated_ the whole superhero gig.

"See the world," they said. "Save civilians. Punch Hitler. _In the face._ " Well, nobody ever mentioned the kidnapping. Of course, he probably should have seen it coming, considering the number of enemies he and the Avengers had made in the past few months, but still. This was getting old, and if he was being completely honest again, he hated it more than the average guy.

Of course, that might have something to do with a certain "in a cave with a box of scraps" incident that - admittedly - had resulted in the first Iron Man suit. The rest of it, however, hadn't been so great. He would never admit to having some lingering phobias (water, the dark, caves, Hungarian) from that time.

It would not help him at _all_ to dwell on that, though. Natasha and Clint had been with him, they would get him out of this. He wouldn't have to think his way out, not this time. Of course, it would be downright _rude_ for him to just sit on his ass while they did all the work.

Actually, he might not have much of a choice. His hands were tied, a simple blindfold around his eyes (he might be able to shake it loose - would that be worth it?) and he had hit his head at some point so it was all sticky with blood. Head wounds always bled a lot, but it wasn't anything serious, and he remembered gas flooding the room and making him collapse, so it wasn't the head wound that knocked him out. That was a good sign.

And he was seriously considering something tricky. He did have a head wound that (from the amount of blood on his face) certainly _looked_ nasty, and he knew all the symptoms of a concussion down pat… and a lot of them he could probably fake.

 _Drowsiness, slurred speech, delayed reaction to questions, amnesia surrounding the event, not to mention dried blood all over my face._ If they didn't fall for that, he could probably induce an anxiety attack in these circumstances, which would almost certainly make him throw up. Then again, that was just a terrible idea, especially as he was on the verge of one anyway.

Natasha and Clint would get him out. There was no need to do much more than just stay alive, no need to compromise his already failing willpower. He could trust his team.

He waited three hours before he started getting worried. He kept telling himself that he could trust his team, who would exploit the tiniest mistake by their captors.

Except… if he wasn't out of this already, if Natasha and Clint hadn't managed an escape after _three hours,_ it was entirely possible that these kidnappers simply weren't _making_ any mistakes. And if that was the case, it was up to Tony to create one. Force the kidnappers to deviate from whatever plan they were following so that the two master assassins could make a move. And after three hours, he still hadn't come up with anything he could do to change their actions other than change how he appeared to them.

 _Concussion it is_ , he thought, and started planning his symptoms. He was already "waking up" three hours later than he "should have," assuming they knew when he should regain consciousness based on the gas they had used and his body weight. He could make that assumption. They were apparently smarter than the average bear.

Right. So, time to actually "wake up." Act confused, don't talk much (a serious challenge), slow reaction time. Would that be enough to fool them? Part of him wanted to say yes, but the more intelligent part of him knew that the more convincing the act was, the better chance he had of getting out alive. He let his eyes drift open, making sure to keep them unfocused for a minute. There were three guards in the room, something he never would have noticed with his eyes shut, all standing completely still and silent. He groaned. "Where'm I?" It wasn't hard to slur his words, he had been drunk enough times that it practically came naturally. "W'happen?"

There was no answer, which was fine with him, since it might have taken away some of his ability to act completely confused and disoriented. Now he just had to sell it, sell it as completely as possible (but not _oversell it_ ). Nausea was probably the best option, since it wouldn't seem like something he could fake. Problem was, there was only one thing he could do to make himself throw up while he was tied to a damn chair.

Huffing out a breath, he closed his eyes for a second and called up Yinsen's face in his mind. Feeding the fear, he focused on his surroundings. He was _kidnapped,_ trying to think his way out of it, and the last time he had to think his way out of a kidnapping, a good man had died. Not just died - died because of Tony's stupid plan. He could practically smell the blood in that cave.

The smell of blood surrounded him, he was in a poorly-lit stone room, men with guns surrounding him as he was tied up and barely conscious. It really was absurdly easy to panic. The problem was controlling it, something he couldn't really do under even the calmest circumstances.

His hands shook, but that didn't matter - they were tied behind him. He could sweat all he wanted, groan, whatever. He just couldn't scream or say any intelligible word.

"Think m'gonna…" he didn't bother to finish his sentence. Probably couldn't anyway, not with fear rising like a tide straight up his spine. Most of his conscious thought shut down as he progressed quickly from shaking and crying to full-on vomiting and having next to no control over his limbs. If he hadn't been tied up, he would have fallen straight out of the chair.

He could hear gunshots, but they were only coming from his own mind. He had to get the panic attack under control or they would realize the nausea wasn't from a concussion, and he had _not_ gone through all that just to have his plan fall apart.

It was times like these when he _really_ hated being a superhero.

* * *

Sometimes Steve felt absolutely helpless. Being half a world away when you got the call that a full half of your team was missing in action definitely qualified. "Thor, Bruce. We have a situation. Pack up and let's abort."

"Do not abort, Captain Rogers." Fury's voice was low. It was rare that the director himself called them in the field. "You can't do anything back here, and if you pull out of that Hydra base we're going to lose a lot of agents in the area before you get a chance to return."

He clenched his fists. There was no way in hell he was going to ignore this and hang his teammates out to dry. "With all due respect, Director, half of the team being kidnapped is a reason to abort a mission if I ever heard one."

"I only informed you of this so you would know the situation, Captain." Fury's voice was surprisingly not as angry as it could have been. "Believe me, I understand how you feel, but Agents Barton and Romanoff can easily handle a situation like this one. We have no evidence that this is anything but a shoddy kidnapping scheme, and believe me, they've all done this before."

"Yeah, well, Stark's going to have our heads if we don't get him out of there," Steve said, hoping Fury hadn't forgotten the man's previous kidnapping experience, which had ended with a _giant glorified battery in his chest keeping him alive._ "Thor, Bruce?"

The god of thunder hesitated. "It is the utmost dishonor in Asgard to abandon one's compatriots to danger. We must rescue them, the timing, however, is… flexible?"

"Nat and Clint can definitely handle themselves." Bruce smiled. "I'll tell you what, Cap. We finish this mission as fast as we can, blow the base, and by the time we're back, Natasha will have a nice succinct report written on how they escaped, and Clint and Tony will be embellishing it."

"With dinosaurs and robot zombies, no doubt," Steve agreed. "Director, if you haven't heard from them by tonight, we're coming back in."

"We will have," Fury responded confidently. A little too confidently, considering that by dawn the next day, the Hydra base was a smoking ruin and there was still no word from the rest of their team. Fury called them back and when he said "No word," it was the same as ordering them back to base and knowing they would be there faster than humanly possible.

And of course they were, but without any information on who took them or where they might have been transported, there was absolutely nothing to do but wait. Wait, and worry about why the two best field agents in the world hadn't managed to foil a simple kidnapping yet, and think about just how fragile the third victim would be, without his suit and with his history.

It was times like these when Captain America, super soldier, felt absolutely helpless.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N - Tony purposefully inducing a panic attack to help him fake a concussion is probably the _strangest_ plot bunny I've ever had. On with the story!**

Clint woke up inside a completely different room than before. Well… _room_ might be a little bit of an overstatement. _Cell_ was closer, but he suspected this room had better security than the average cell. He didn't even remember falling asleep, the last he remembered he had been wide awake and starting to work on the ropes around his arms. They had probably used gas again.

"Barton." Natasha's voice brought him back to full awareness instantly. "Great, some company. Try to scooch yourself over here, won't you?"

Right. Assess the situation. He no longer had a hood on his head or a gag in his mouth, that was definitely an improvement (it really had tasted _terrible_ ). "Right, Nat, be right there." His hands and feet were still bound together, but the day he couldn't move across a floor while only half tied up was the day the world ended. "Are you hurt?"

"Not a scratch. Well… scratches," she amended, glancing at a scrape on her arm, "but nothing serious. Hoping you have better luck than me with these ropes."

"People are finally starting to realize that zip ties aren't a proper method of securing assassins, huh?" Clint smirked as he arrived at Natasha's side and started examining the knot tying her hands. The zip tie incident had been the easiest kidnapping to escape in their entire lives. It had taken them a grand total of four minutes, eight seconds from when they woke up to when they had full control of the warehouse they had been kept in. "Pity, honestly I always prefer the dumb kidnappers, they don't interrupt our day as much."

Nat just nodded and waited patiently as Clint turned around and twisted his fingers around the ropes. "How long do you think we have?"

"No way to-" he heard footsteps in the hallway and immediately rolled as far away from his partner as he could before he heard four things in quick succession: the door opening, Natasha's sharp intake of breath that was not quite a gasp, something (someone) hitting the floor, and the door closing again. He waited as the footsteps receded.

Immediately, he heard Natasha whisper that the coast was clear, and he sat upright again and started making his way over to her as she fought against the ropes to cross the cell. "Jeez," she muttered, drawing his attention to the person who had been thrown in.

"Tony?" Clint managed to get his hands on Natasha's ropes again and started working out the knots, listening for more footsteps. "Are you okay?" The inventor smelled like blood and vomit, and from the way Natasha was waving her hand around in front of his face, he was dazed as hell.

After a few seconds, a quiet, "M'all right" echoed through the room. He sounded _drunk._ There was no way he was drunk. Drugged?

"We have a problem," Natasha muttered, squinting at the blood in his hair and feeling for the wound. "He's either drugged, or he has one hell of a concussion."

That made sense. He was obviously not focusing, and there was the blood and vomit and of course the obvious fact that he was totally out of it. "I'd say concussed." His partner nodded. "Hey, Tony, what's three to the third?"

After a couple of seconds, the inventor shot him a (slightly cross-eyed) annoyed glance and slurred, "Twen'y-seven." The pause before he even registered the question, however, proved the diagnosis. Clint pulled the first of several knots free and started to work on the next one.

This was _not_ going to be easy.

Luckily, he had never really put much stock in things being easy. He still had Natasha with him, and that was all he could ask for when attempting to foil even the most brilliant kidnapping. Eventually, their captors would have to leave an opening, and it would be just like Budapest Well, kinda. Okay, not really. He doubted _anything_ would ever be like Budapest.

* * *

Fury had been right about one thing: Steve was absolutely not needed. Not that he would be going anywhere.

It was frustrating, knowing that it had been almost a full twenty-four hours since their teammates had disappeared, and hearing some SHIELD Agents still speculating that they might have just wandered off for coffee or something. In fact, he could have sworn he heard at least one person muttering about the three of them probably going AWOL just for a vacation.

On a completely unrelated note, he had almost broken one agent's arm earlier that day.

"Captain Rogers?" Agent Hill poked her head around the corner as Steve sat staring at the rows of agents with computers searching half of Europe for any trace of the missing trio. "Sir, you should go home. We'll call you if we find anything."

Well, at least that was one area he had control over. "Thank, Agent Hill, but I think I'll stay here. With any luck, it won't be much longer." He wasn't tired yet, anyway (he fought back the urge to yawn as soon as he had that thought, the last time he'd slept had been almost eighteen hours ago, but he could function for another day or so). "If Agent Romanov and Agent Barton are as good as everyone is saying, they should be calling us any minute now, right?"

Fury's second-in-command shrugged. "Knowing those two, it all depends on the group who captured them. Their shortest escape was under five minutes."

"What was their longest?" He couldn't help but ask, despite the fact that he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know. On the one hand, it would give him some idea of whether he had to worry. On the other hand, he was _already_ worried. "Without SHIELD finding them?"

"Ten days," answered Hill, and that wasn't too bad. He knew that Tony could hold tight for ten days even if it took them that long. Ten days wouldn't be so bad, of course they'd all be tired and Tony would probably yell at everyone he saw until he got a cheeseburger, but they'd be fine.

Of course, there were no guarantees. "Thank you," he said, and turned back to watching the agents work. Every so often, one of them would speak, say that they had something, but so far it had always turned out to be simply a coincidence, an anomaly.

Ten days. SHIELD would move heaven and earth to make that shorter, but even if they failed miserably, it would only be ten days.

That's when he realized he hadn't asked Hill about the times SHIELD _had_ rescued them. The times they _didn't_ get themselves out. But no - he had to trust them. They would be all right.

He just felt _helpless._


	4. Chapter 4

Natasha was honestly missing the zip tie incident. She was missing the times when the number of openings enemies left numbered somewhere between a dozen and "too damn many." Because these guys? They were smart, and they knew how to build a damn cell. She and Clint had untied each other _hours_ ago, and still hadn't found a way out of the room. The door had bars, too strong and close together to offer any escape route, and the lock was completely out of reach without a very long piece of wire. So, yeah, she was getting a little twitchy. She hated having to wait for someone to come and get them before they made their daring escape.

She and Clint had compared stories, mostly for information about just how intelligent their captors really were. He had been interested that they knew not to pull a chloroform rag away as soon as their target went limp. Almost every enemy they had faced had fallen for Natasha playing dead. The last one who hadn't… well, Coulson had to come save their asses, which had been more than a little embarrassing. "It's likely that they'll knock us out any time they need to transport us," Clint surmised aloud (and by _aloud_ she meant "tapping on the floor in a code that was their own special mix of Morse and the tap code"). "We'll have to escape from whatever room they bring us into, or else somehow trick them into thinking we're unconscious."

"I did my best the first time," she tapped back. "Our best bet is to feign sleep so they think we can't be faking at all." At his quick nod, they exchanged smiles and switched codes to a sign language that belonged to them alone. After all the time they had worked together, they had over seventeen unique codes that only the two of them knew.

Unfortunately, that meant Tony would have no proper way of knowing what the hell they were talking about, or really whether they were talking at all. That is, if he ever got over his concussion. It looked like a bad one, he had already thrown up twice already. She was starting to be able to tell when he was going to be sick; he tended to tense up and screw his eyes shut for almost a minute before he vomited. She was honestly starting to get worried, because every time she looked over at him, he was a little bit more pale. They all had to conserve their strength.

"So, any clues on where we are?" She signed to Clint. He just shook his head. The temperature was comfortable and the walls of the cell were cinderblock, with no windows, leaving them very few clues about where in the world they could be. "I'd say we were unconscious for about six hours the first time, so they couldn't have taken us to, say, California."

"I got six hours, too," he replied with a smile, fingers flying. "Too bad, I would have liked a nice LA vacation. Once we find our way - footsteps." He broke off and both their smiles fell away. At last, maybe they would get a couple of answers. The guards who had come to throw Tony into the room hadn't said a word.

The man before them was possibly the least expected face any of them could have seen. Natasha nearly cursed aloud, Clint's hand went to his (absent) quiver, and Tony… well, had no idea what was going on. But honestly, if he had been fully aware, he probably wouldn't have understood the significance of that face. This was more of a secret between Clint and Natasha, because they hadn't seen this man in a _very_ long time.

Not since Budapest.

* * *

Tony was in really bad shape. Every time he pictured himself back in that cave in Afghanistan, back facing the tub of icy water as words in other languages and accented English were snapped at him from every direction, he started to panic. He closed his eyes and used all his concentration to make sure he didn't scream. If he made a sound, said a word about Yinsen or the Ten Rings or anything else having to do with those long three months, someone might realize his nausea was the result of something other than a concussion.

So he managed to keep his mouth shut and ride out one attack after another. The first had been on purpose, to make himself throw up, but now they just kept coming. While it was useful for the "concussion" act, it was sapping his strength at an alarming rate, and anyway the whole "I'm injured and not functioning properly" act wasn't helping them escape.

When Clint and Natasha started speaking to each other in a language he didn't know (and doubted more than twelve people in the world spoke fluently), he wanted to groan. He was practically getting the silent treatment. Of course, it was a great idea to talk in code, especially if they were discussing escape plans… but why the hell didn't the Avengers have a code? He couldn't understand a word they were saying, or tapping, or signing.

His thoughts were snatched away from designing a code for their team when footsteps echoed down the hallway. Natasha and Clint were already staring, alert, at the door. Tony decided now would be a good time to act dazed and confused. It was hard, though, not to react when both master assassins stiffened. Slowly, he looked around to see a completely average man standing in the doorway. Average height, average weight, okay, more muscular than even Clint, that was one defining feature. Average brown hair in a haircut that Tony might see in the corner cubicle of an accounting department. The man could disappear into any crowd if he wore a jacket instead of a tank top (those biceps really were _outrageous_ ).

Clint glared daggers at the man. "You've grown your hair out. To what do I owe the displeasure of your company?"

"The all-too-famous Hawkeye," the man replied with a smirk. "Have you gained weight?"

"Lost some, actually." Clint stood, the first any of them had risen from a crouch since removing their bindings. He walked forward to the bars, but the man stayed well out of reach. "So, taken to kidnapping nowadays? I thought assassination and shooting allies in the back was more your style." He narrowed his eyes.

The man simply shrugged. "Hydra pays, and Hydra pays well. They want information, and luckily the three weakest members have the most." His eyes flickered around the room, landing on Tony, who made sure not to look too alert. "Although one of you might have a few less brain cells than we originally expected. Maybe that's for the best - just enough awareness to duplicate an old design, not enough to make a new one." He smiled at Tony.

The inventor paused, took two breaths, and then seemed to register that the comment was aimed at him. Careful not to annunciate too clearly, he told their captor, "I'll tell you where y'can shove the… whatever it is you want…"

"I did tell them not to injure you too badly." The man (when was he going to get a _name,_ for god's sake?) shook his head sadly. "Damaging valuable merchandise. I'll have to have a talk with them about that." The smile on his face was enough to make even a child understand that he was not intended to use his words during that "talk."

Tony felt three pairs of eyes on him. His teammates and their enemy. The stress of the situation was starting to make him shake with the beginnings of another panic attack, but he clamped it down by meeting Clint's eyes. The archer calmly deflected the man's attention by asking, "And what kind of information do you want from us?"

"Oh, all of it, of course, but we'll probably start with certain SHIELD codes and authorizations. Nothing major, of course." Their mysterious captor (he really wanted a name to go with that stupid face) would not be deflected, however, and immediately turned back to Tony. "I'm afraid, however, that on the off-chance Mister Stark is going to die of brain damage, we'd better start with him." Then the man nonchalantly walked away.

It was Clint who realized footsteps were approaching even as one set receeded, and he scrambled to Tony's side. Bending over to speak directly into his ear, his words were just loud enough to understand. "If you get a chance, we're going to need three things. A location, a weapon, and a piece of wire long enough for Nat to get to the lock. Nothing fancy, I'd settle for a continent, a rusty nail, and a clothes hanger." He looked right into Tony's eyes and asked, "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Tony just blinked at him. The only thing he said was, "Who wazzat guy?" He knew the tiny pinhole audio recorders that were no doubt stuck all around the cell _probably_ wouldn't have picked up Clint's barely audible whisper, but there was a chance.

"A ghost," Natasha joked, but worry clouded her eyes, and Tony suddenly had, if not a name, at least a word to fit the face. _Dangerous._ It wasn't much of a moniker, but it would do.

Then guards were bursting into the room to grab him and drag him after the dangerous man, and he held on to three things. He had to try to decide where they were, he had to find a weapon, and he really, really needed to get Natasha some wire.

Problem was, he wasn't sure _how_.


	5. Chapter 5

They came for Clint soon after Tony was taken, leaving Natasha alone to plot her escape. Privately, she was really hoping her partner would burst in the door a few minutes later, Tony over his shoulder and gun in his hand, ready to run… but it didn't happen, and she _really_ wasn't surprised. It wasn't going to be that easy.

And she wasn't worried about her partner, she _wasn't,_ caring was not an advantage in a situation like this. She was only pacing because her foot had been falling asleep. She was only dreading the state Clint might be in when he returned because they both needed to be at one hundred percent for their inevitable escape. She was only cursing at Fury to get a move on and save them because she didn't want to miss movie night at the Tower.

All right, _maybe_ she was worried about Clint. Maybe she was a little nervous. But that would _not_ affect her judgement, her actions, or her escape. She took a few deep breaths and sat in lotus position to wait for her partner's return.

Tony came back first, a limp body thrown unceremoniously into the cell. At first she thought (only for a second, but a heart-stopping second) that they had killed him, but it quickly became clear that he had passed out at some point. "No, Tony, wake up, you can't sleep. You can't sleep, you have a concussion, you know better than this, you idiot." He wasn't waking up, even when she shook his shoulder. Biting her lip, she pinched his arm as hard as she could.

" _Ngh."_ He didn't open his eyes, but he curled in on himself. He was awake, that was something. He needed to stay away. She pinched him again. He blinked, eyes crossed, and muttered, "Pepper?"

She winced. "No. It's Natasha. You need to keep your eyes open, okay? You can't go back to sleep."

"But _Pepperrrrr,_ " he whined, sounding a lot clearer than earlier, but then immediately went back to slurring his words. "I don' _wanna_ do… things."

"Jesus, Tony. You need to stay awake, you need to stay with me, okay?" She glanced around the cell and said, "If you idiots are listening, he needs medical attention. Like, an MRI or something. Otherwise he might have bleeding in his brain, and you're just going to end up with a body instead of a genius! If you want information from him, you'll have to make sure he stays _alive_ first!" She glared at the bars of the cell, but no response came.

Tony took her hand. "Good t'know you… care, 'tash." He smiled slightly, squeezing her hand tightly, and pulled her weakly to sit with him. "They won' answer, though." He squeezed her hand again, tighter, almost painfully tight.

"I know," she said, "but you really need a brain scan or something. You're obviously… you're obviously hurt." She trailed off for a second the third time he squeezed her, but recovered. Gently, making sure her muscles didn't tense too much, she returned the pressure.

He smiled and, still squeezing her hand, let his eyes slip closed. If it weren't for the steady pressure of his fingers, she would think he was asleep. She pinched him again, but not hard, and he didn't respond.

"Tony? No, come on, you need to stay awake." She slapped him and shouted in his ear, and he never so much as twitched. She even took his pulse once just to make sure he was still alive, even though his fingers were still clenched around hers. "Dammit, Tony!" She yelled at him, and she was acting now. She wasn't sure _why_ she was acting, why he needed them to think he was asleep, why he was holding her hand… but she acted anyway, because dammit, this was Tony Stark. Even concussed, he had to have _some_ kind of plan. She curled up around his hand, acting worried, stroking his hair, checking his temperature with the back of her hand, but never letting her left hand stray from his.

The moment she hid his hand from view, however, his index finger started moving, drumming on her palm. With all the tapping codes she and Clint used, it took her quite a while to realize he was simply using Morse Code. _C-A-N Y-O-U U-N-D-E-R-S-T-?_ He knew she was smart enough to finish the word, so he didn't waste time doing it himself.

Why all the secrecy, though? If he wanted to send a Morse message, he could have just told her so, and she would have held his hand immediately. There was no need for all this secrecy, although she didn't exactly _mind_ it, there had been no need to worry her by making her think he was about to pass out. As she drummed back _Y-E-S_ , she wondered at it. After all, she and Clint had been quite obviously communicating for hours and hours.

It came to her before he even tapped it out. He didn't want their captors to know they were communicating simply because it required a lot of situational awareness to send secret messages. Situational awareness that he was _pretending_ not to have.

 _N-O-T C-O-N-C-U-S-S-E-D,_ Tony tapped.

 _Oh, you clever bastard,_ Natasha thought, and restrained the urge to grin or laugh aloud.

Lying in front of her, blood matted in his hair, smelling of vomit and sweat and apparently dead to the world, was Tony Stark, brain working at 100%, completely aware of everything going on around him. Because of a minor scratch on his skull and a decision to blow it out of proportion, Tony possessed the most important part of any escape attempt, more important than a piece of wire, more important than a location, more important than a weapon: the all-important element of surprise. So far, their captors were doing everything right… so Tony had decided to throw out a few more variables to trip them up. _G-O-O-D,_ she tapped, and left it at that, because he had enough of an ego already without her complimenting him.

Five minutes later, she changed her mind and tapped out that he was a genius.

 _H-A-S-N-T H-E-L-P-E-D Y-E-T,_ he replied, and he was right. It hadn't helped yet, Clint was still missing, and they were still trapped in the stone cell.

So why did things look so much brighter to her?


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N - So the other day I noticed that this had gained two reviews for some reason (thanks Gin and Elizabeth) and I realized "you know, I actually have an idea for the next chapter for this."**

 **So, as some of you who have read multiple stories by me have noticed, only "Midnight" has been getting updates. I almost forgot that this story is pretty much as popular.**

 **Without further ado: HAVE SOME CLINT!**

Generally, Clint knew what to expect from kidnappings. He knew, if he was separated from the group, that it meant pain was coming and he wouldn't be returned for several hours.

The only problem was, he hadn't really expected to be held away from Natasha for quite so _long._ He knew how to deal with situations like these, but it was getting frustrating. Counting minutes in his head was getting harder, but he was pretty sure it had been more than twelve hours, and that was just bordering on _ridiculous._

When they had dragged him away, he had been utterly focused on the typical four things he was trained to think of in such a situation. How many thugs did they think were necessary to transport him? How many more people did he see, hear, or smell along the way? Don't forget to count steps - how far is it from your cell to every place you see? And, of course, most importantly, the three things they needed: wire, weapon, whereabouts.

There were already a couple of problems. First of all, the number of thugs they used to transport him was overkill. Not only were there twelve people in his escort, but four of them were actually trained, trained to elite status. They weren't as good as him, sure, but four-to-one odds? Even discounting the eight idiots, he didn't like his chances.

Problem number two: he wasn't being walked toward an exit. At least he knew it wasn't this way, although it could plausibly be along any of the tunnels sprouting off the main one.

And, of course, twelve hours later, there was problem number three. He was no longer at one hundred percent. In fact, he was probably… closer to seventy percent. And he didn't have any wire, any weapons, or any _clue_ as to their whereabouts.

What he _did_ have were bruises, probably including all of his ribs. At least in torture these goons were typical, choosing to spend most of the first day beating him with lengths of leather and rubber hoses. His back was bleeding badly, and probably going to scar. He'd had worse, much worse, and honestly it was the first mistake their captors made. They were probably trying to make him go a little soft before they progressed to serious injuries, but people had tried that and failed at it before. SHIELD agents were trained better than that, at least ones of his caliber.

He was dumped into the cell and Natasha was immediately signalling to him at fifty words a minute. She ignored his injuries entirely, because she could see in his eyes that it was nothing major, just pain and bruising. Instead, the first thing she signalled was, "Get anything?"

"Nothing," he replied, keeping his face carefully neutral. "They left you alone, then?"

"Completely. Didn't even look at me." Her eyes said that she didn't know why, at least no more than the same vague, nagging suspicion that Clint had: these people were trying to mess them up simply by being unpredictable.

It was almost embarrassing how well it was working. "What about Stark?" He had no signal for the man's name, not in this particular set of signals, so he simply used the word _him._

Natasha waved her hand in a gesture they both knew was synonymous for a smile. "He is unharmed." He didn't quite understand, so she repeated herself, this time making the last gesture huge. "He is very unharmed."

It took Clint a few long moments to put the pieces together. When he did, the picture they made was clear. "That crazy bastard," he replied finally, adding his own 'smile' to the sentence. Stark was, himself, just as unpredictable as the whole damned group that had kidnapped them.

Honestly, he should have expected it from the beginning. The single unpredictable element their group brought to the table? Stark's injury. It was just like him to look up half a day later and find a way to say, _just kidding._

"He had me fooled," he admitted, and then started to relay every single step count he had taken on his way to and from being tortured. He knew in Natasha's mind she was already translating them into her own paces.

So, of course, that was when all the lights went out.

On some level, he knew it was to stop them from communicating as easily, but he immediately started to speak in one of their shared (and utterly obscure) languages. "They really are trying to keep us on guard, aren't they?"

"This isn't good," Natasha responded, and for a long moment Clint couldn't figure out what she meant. Then he registered the ragged breathing in one corner of their cell, the rasp that spoke of pain, the speed which spoke of panic. "He's going to flip out if we don't get some light."

Yeah, Tony flipping out would probably be _bad._ It was hard to fake a concussion, Clint had done it twice, and neither time while he was being tied up and thrown into a situation almost guaranteed to set off PTSD.

Luckily for Tony, he managed to solve his own problem simply by lifting his own shirt. In an instant, the whole tiny cell was bathed in blue light.

There was just one small problem.

The instant he did that, Clint started gasping for air.

* * *

Natasha only had a second to register that Tony couldn't stand the dark before the cell was filled with blue light.

The ragged breathing didn't stop, and she figured out why in under five seconds. "Clint, the light, it's just from the arc reactor," she reassured him, finding it difficult to get across the words _arc reactor_ but managing to make herself understood.

Unfortunately, it really didn't help much. She recognized the color filling the room, it was the same color that Clint once confessed haunted his dreams, ever since Loki and that damnable sceptre. Being put under a god's control, forced to murder fellow agents, and stripped of all power over his own actions… it was practically the man's worst nightmare.

And when it had happened, everything, he confessed, had been tinged with a very particular color of blue.

Making use of the limited light in the room, Natasha placed her hand on Tony's back, still keeping up a stream of conversation with Clint, and started to tap out a message. "It's just his reactor, Clint, just close your eyes."

"Natasha?" He spoke in English, and her eyes widened. She was losing him, after at least thirteen or fourteen hours, and a vicious beating, she was losing him to a _nightlight._

 _How is this my life?_

She rapped out her message on Tony's back, but even as she told him, _N-O L-I-G-H-T,_ she was forcing his shirt down over the reactor, forcing them back into the darkness, forcing Tony back into a blackness that she knew he couldn't handle.

This was not going to be good.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N - I don't have PTSD, or any sort of panic attacks. I have** ** _no clue_** **what I've been talking about this entire time. I think most of you have been liking this story anyway, so I'm just apologizing to the people who like actually accurate depictions of this stuff. I can only spend so much time on research before I decide "Screw it, I just want to** ** _write this already_** **."**

 **Another thing: I've started yet another Tony Stark story, against all common sense, so if anyone likes those stereotypical "it's hard to keep a secret identity" things, that's up. And has 2 chapters already.**

 **HAVE SOME TONY STARK, BECAUSE IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELL, I ENJOY HIS PAIN.**

This was _very not good,_ and Tony didn't have the faintest clue what to do about it.

When the darkness had first descended, he had been fighting off yet another minor anxiety attack, and then suddenly he hadn't been able to see his hand in front of his face. Spiralling into a panic attack without so much as a firefly to drive away the horrific feeling of being back in that cave, or worse, back in space, falling forever…

Finally, after a handful of seconds that felt like hours, his brain had coughed up the obvious solution of the nightlight _embedded in his chest._ In an instant, his shirt was half off, and the blue light was flickering on Natasha's face, reassuring him that other people were there, that he wasn't trapped and alone, just trapped. _You won't be trapped for long,_ he asserted, _not with those two superspies here._ He focused on the flickering blue light, ignoring everything else.

Until, for some reason it went dark again.

He yanked his shirt up again, only to find a small hand covering his wrist with an iron grip. A similar hand was tapping out code on his back, code he couldn't decipher because every part of his brain was screaming at the absence of the light.

 _No light means no heat means no air_ and suddenly he wasn't sitting on hard rock anymore but instead floating in a vast emptiness he couldn't quite comprehend, freezing and falling and suffocating all at once.

If he closed his eyes he would never open them again, he knew the end of the story, he knew what had happened. His heart had stopped beating. His lungs had no longer drawn in air. The reactor, dead in his chest - the reactor was out.

The reactor was out, so he was already dead. Dead like the man in the cave, dead like he was wishing to be as water flooded his lungs, and he didn't know if he was in space or drowning but he was _cold_ and he couldn't _breathe_ and there was _no light and no air_.

He would have screamed, but there was a rough, callused hand across his mouth, so tight that he couldn't even gasp frantically for air that wasn't there.

And then he couldn't tell that there was a hand, that there was rock underneath him, that someone was tapping on his back.

All he could see was black, black with a curtain of stars, and he just kept falling forever.

* * *

He jerked back with a cry that was muffled by the hand across his mouth. The hand was back, then. It probably hadn't gone away - it was Tony that had gone away, lost himself for who knew how long. So it was him who was back, just barely.

The hand mercifully disappeared, allowing him to gasp in as much air as his lungs could take (which wasn't as much as a normal person because of the reactor, but beggars can't be choosers, and he _needed air_ ). The hand tapping at his back hand disappeared, instead, two small hands were on his shoulders, gently but firmly holding him to the floor. He wondered how much he had been moving around if she felt that was necessary.

Tapping again, a calloused finger right on his cheek. It took him several repetitions until he even recognized that the tapping was his own name.

" _Tony?"_

He hesitantly reached out, found a face - the wrong face - reached out again, found a muscled arm that seemed to correspond to the hand, and started his own tapping. It took him two tries to remember how to form the word " _Yes"_ in Morse Code.

Chatter over his head in a language that sounded more like parrot squawks than any human communication, and then from two different hands came the same word. " _Sorry."_

It took him a minute to remember anything about what had happened, and when he recalled slender hands forcing him to hide his only source of light, he recoiled.

Recoiled, and then immediately returned, because if he couldn't have light he could at least feel the grounding presence of other people. He sought out Natasha's hands, and asked her the simplest question he knew: " _Why?"_

The explanation he got, something about the color of the reactor's light and Clint having a panic attack, made a little more sense after he spent a few minutes actually getting the correct amount of oxygen. He had thought he was getting none at all, but really, it seemed like he had been getting a little too much. Clint's hand over his mouth had at least stopped him from inhaling until he seriously hurt his cramped lungs (and stopped him from screaming his head off).

" _So blue light gives him panic attacks. Just so you know,"_ he replied as soon as his fingers had enough dexterity, " _having_ no _light gives_ me _panic attacks."_

She said, " _Sorry,"_ but all three of them knew she would make the same choice again if she had to, as many times as necessary. And it might _be_ necessary, because their captors must have heard his muffled cry, and they would probably turn off the lights again.

So, without the Iron Man suit or any possible variation, and unable to be used as a flashlight, the arc reactor was just a glorified car battery. What a heap of useless junk.

When his brain caught up to his train of thought, he nearly laughed aloud. Reaching out for a hand, he found Clint's first, and tapped so frantically that the archer ended up grabbing Tony's fingers and making him start over, more slowly.

" _Arc reactor."_

The tension that rippled through Clint's arm startled him. After a couple of seconds, Tony realized that his friend thought he was still talking about the blue light, and he huffed out a silent sigh before he resumed painstakingly forming letters.

" _Not for light. Useless. Pile of junk."_ He was trying to make himself understood, but a few words were still eluding him as he tried to stay grounded in the present moment. " _Junk. Junk."_

After he repeated the word three more times, Clint grabbed his fingers, and he stilled. Slowly, the question came back: " _Junk equals wire?"_

" _Yes!"_ That was the word he had been looking from, and immediately the parrot-squawks started up again as Clint relayed the information to Natasha.

And it was Natasha who rapped out questions against Tony's shoulder, a conversation that was frustratingly slow for all parties. " _How long to get the wire out?"_

" _Eight minutes."_ He hesitated, and the following messages was tapped out much more slowly than necessary as his hands trembled. " _Three for you."_

His hands were large, fingers shaking from the constant anxiety he was trying to press back, and nails worn. Her hands were slender, steady, and her nails were sharp enough to pry open latches.

And, for a very good reason (whose name was Stane), he had a huge problem with anyone else touching the reactor.

* * *

She either didn't understand his trepidation or was still considering the options, because she moved on to the next question. " _Will it still work?"_

He knew what she meant. Nobody could expect the arc reactor to lose parts and still power the Iron Man suit, but she was asking about its more vital function: keeping the shrapnel out of Tony's heart. And that same heart was heavy as he tapped back, " _Not for long. An hour before it cuts out - and then it's all a game of how long it takes the shrapnel to kill me."_

The word she typed back wasn't exactly appropriate, but it fit his mood pretty well. He heard Clint squawk a word that he suspected meant much the same thing.

" _It's the only idea I have,"_ he admitted.

" _It's a good last resort,"_ Natasha responded. The conversation was helping, at least, the past had mostly stopped trying to force its way into the present. " _How long a wire?"_

He snorted in his head. " _Plenty long to pick the lock."_ Slowly, he placed one finger at her wrist and another halfway between her elbow and shoulder. She tapped back an instant approval.

Was it possible, he wondered, for Morse Code to sound excited?

It was only one of the three items they had insisted he had to find, but it was at least something. And if he found another source of wire, so much the better.

One down. Two to go.

" _What should I do with the concussion, anyway?"_

" _Well, there aren't many symptoms you can add without going into a coma,"_ Clint mused. " _I like the whole throwing-up-passing-out thing you've got going on, though."_

He winced, and Natasha _felt_ him wince, and suddenly even in the darkness he could feel her eyes on him. Slowly, he took her hands, stopped her fingers from tapping on his skin, stopped her from asking the question he knew was coming.

Eventually, Clint connected the dots as well, and the question came from a direction he wasn't expected, the letters tapped into his back like a brand.

" _Is that from the fucking panic attacks?"_

He sighed and tapped his answer guiltily into Clint's palm, glad neither of them could see him blush. " _I forced the first one. I hoped it wouldn't get this bad."_

One quick conversation in some dead language later, and Natasha and Clint's fingers were strangely still. Tony was still embarrassed. He really hadn't expected things to get this bad, he thought he could handle it, keep the attacks under control. So, he'd been stupid enough to force one for the express purpose of 'playing sick,' and now it might mess up their whole plan, because he'd accidentally actually _incapacitated himself_ while trying to fake being incapacitated.

For a genius, he really was an idiot, he berated himself.

Strangely, though, his teammates didn't seem to agree. When Clint finally answered his admission, he simply tapped out, " _Pretty badass."_

Natasha decided to stay more focused. " _How long can you keep it up?"_

He didn't even hesitate.

" _As long as the lights stay on."_

 **A/N - Thanks for the bazillion reviews last chapter. I liked that. Can we do that again?**


End file.
